Gengoroh Tagame

Gengoroh Tagame is a pseudonymous Japanese manga artist. He is regarded as the most prolific and influential creator in the gay manga genre. Tagame began contributing manga and prose fiction to Japanese gay men's magazines in the 1980s, after making his debut as a manga artist in the yaoi manga magazine June while in high school. As a student he studied graphic design at Tama Art University, and worked as a commercial graphic designer and art director to support his career as a manga artist. His manga series The Toyed Man, originally serialized in the gay men's magazine Badi from 1992 to 1993, enjoyed breakout success after it was published as a book in 1994. After co-founding the gay men's magazine G-men in 1995, Tagame began working as a gay manga artist full-time.
For much of his career Tagame exclusively created erotic and pornographic manga, works that are distinguished by their graphic depictions of sadomasochism, sexual violence, and hypermasculinity. Beginning in the 2010s, Tagame gained mainstream recognition after he began to concurrently produce non-pornographic manga depicting LGBT themes and subject material; his 2014 manga series My Brother's Husband, his first series aimed at a general audience, received widespread critical acclaim and was awarded a Japan Media Arts Festival Prize, a Japan Cartoonists Association Award, and an Eisner Award. Tagame is further noted for his contributions as an art historian, through his multi-volume art anthology series Gay Erotic Art in Japan.

WWW tagame.org 𝕏 tagagen FB gengoroh.tagame

Biography

Early life and career

Tagame was born in Kamakura on February 3, 1964, into a family distantly descended from samurai. The younger of two brothers, Tagame was forbidden from reading manga as a child with the exception of the works of Osamu Tezuka, which his parents believed had literary merit. He became exposed to a broader array of manga by reading shōnen stories in barber shop waiting rooms, notably the works of horror authors Kazuo Umezu and Go Nagai, whose manga often featured violent and sexual themes. He began drawing as a child, and by middle school was drawing amateur comics for his classmates and teachers. In his early teens he began drawing pornographic manga after reading novels by the Marquis de Sade and discovering the magazine Renaissance, which re-printed material from underground BDSM manga zines; Tagame has remarked that he discovered his interest in BDSM before he realized he was gay.
He became aware of his homosexuality after watching films featuring "naked and bound men" and discovering the gay men's magazine. He found that he was uninterested in stories in Sabu focused on romance, and drawn to stories that focused on sadomasochism. In high school Tagame began writing manga professionally, and contributed to the manga magazine June in 1982 under a pen name. June was a yaoi magazine that targeted a primarily female readership, and was noted for its avant-garde stories with complex plots and social realism; Tagame's first story in June focused on a "pretty boy who cross dresses" whose father is murdered by his boyfriend. Tagame struggled with his sexuality and interest in sadomasochism through high school, and did not come out until his freshman year of college.
Upon graduating high school Tagame moved to Tokyo to study graphic design at Tama Art University against the wishes of his parents, who expected him to attend the University of Tokyo and become a banker. Throughout college he submitted gay erotic stories, illustrations, and manga to Barazoku, René, and other gay and BL magazines under a variety of pseudonyms. He eventually settled on the pen name "Gengoroh Tagame"; both words are Japanese terms for different species of water bugs, which Tagame chose to differentiate himself from the "macho or romantic" pen names used by other gay Japanese artists. While on a student art tour of Europe, Tagame discovered the American leather magazine Drummer at a bookshop in London. The magazine featured homoerotic and fetishistic illustrations by western artists such as Tom of Finland, Rex, and Bill Ward, and would heavily influence Tagame's art. After graduating university he began to work as a commercial graphic designer and later art director, while continuing to write manga and prose fiction.

Gay erotic manga

The 1980s saw an increase in the popularity of gay media in Japan, a trend inspired by the cultural importation of works by American gay artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Edmund White. As Japanese publishers sought to exploit this new interest in gay art created by gay artists, Tagame emerged as an influential artist on the basis of his work at June, Barazoku, and other magazines. Tagame made his debut as a gay erotic manga artist in 1987, creating manga for Sabu. In contrast to the heterosexual and female-oriented yaoi and BL magazines that had published Tagame's previous works, Sabu was produced by gay men for a gay male audience. His manga series The Toyed Man, originally serialized in the gay men's magazine Badi from 1992 to 1993, was published as a book in 1994 and became the first gay comic work in Japan to turn a profit. The breakout success of The Toyed Man demonstrated the viability of gay manga – manga about gay relationships for a gay male audience, in contrast to yaoi – as a commercial category, and established it as a genre "of cultural merit and artistic importance." Tagame's second longform series, the 824-page, three-volume historical epic The Silver Flower, is noted by Graham Kolbeins as widening "the scope of what gay manga could be narratively" beyond stories focused largely on pornography to incorporate complex narrative and aesthetic elements.
In 1995, Tagame and two editors from Badi founded the gay men's magazine G-men, a shorthand for "Gengoroh's Men". The magazine focused on works depicting masculine, physically large men, and featured manga depicting older and muscular body types. G-men was part of a concerted effort by Tagame to "change the status quo of gay magazines" away from the aesthetic of bishōnen – delicate and androgynous boys and young men that were popular in gay media at the time. G-men was a success, and by 1996, Tagame was working full-time as a gay manga artist. The magazine serialized the bulk of Tagame's manga published during the 1990s and early 2000s, notably Do You Remember the South Island's POW Camp? and Pride. Tagame continued to publish his serialized manga as books during this period, initially through gay pornography production companies, and later through formal publishers. Beginning in 2003, Tagame began publishing the multi-volume gay erotic art anthology series Gay Erotic Art in Japan, which follows the history of Japanese gay erotic art from the 1950s to the present.

International and crossover success

Tagame attracted an international audience beginning in the 2000s though the circulation of pirated and scanlated versions of his works. His works began to receive officially-licensed translations in 2005, after French publisher H&O Editions released a translation of his manga series Gunji; an exhibition of his works was held in Paris in 2009. In 2012, an English-language translation of Tagame's one-shot manga Standing Ovations was published in Thickness, an erotic comics anthology published by Ryan Sands and Michael DeForge, marking the first release of an officially-licensed English-language translation of Tagame's manga. American publisher PictureBox published The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame, an English-language anthology of Tagame's manga, in 2013; several of Tagame's works were also translated into English by the now-defunct publishing house Bruno Gmünder Verlag.
In 2013, Tagame was approached by editors at the publishing company Futabasha about creating a manga series for general audiences. Though Tagame had previously been approached by mainstream manga magazines about creating a non-pornographic autobiographical manga series, he had declined the offers, stating that he "didn't want to abandon my style and my audience by writing a more mainstream work." Beginning in the early 2010s, Tagame noted that while same-sex marriage was rarely covered in the mainstream Japanese press, the issue generated significant interest among his heterosexual fans when he posted about the topic on his Twitter account. Subsequently, Tagame pitched Futabasha for a series about same-sex marriage and LGBT rights in Japan from the perspective of a straight character; the resulting series was My Brother's Husband, which was serialized in the seinen magazine Monthly Action from 2014 to 2017. The series was widely acclaimed, won numerous awards, and was adapted into a live-action television drama that aired on NHK in 2018.
Tagame has continued to create erotic manga concurrently with all-ages manga, stating that the experience of creating My Brother's Husband made him "realize how much fun is to draw" and that balancing the creation of erotic works with the creation of all-ages works was "very healthy for me, mentally." Our Colors, his second series aimed at a general audience, was serialized in Monthly Action from 2018 to 2020. His third general audience manga series, Fish and Water, began serialization in Futabasha's Web Action in 2022.

Style and influences

Tagame describes his style as kuma-kei, a term he uses to describe the masculine, muscular, and hirsute men that he draws. Sex is typically the primary focus of Tagame's manga and his works are almost invariably fetishistic in nature, featuring depictions of bondage, discipline, leather, fisting and sadomasochism. These themes are often amplified through his use of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction to create surreal and hyperreal sexual scenarios. Tagame has acknowledged that his manga "represents a very small minority of the world. In the real world, the large majority of people don't like torture in their sex lives, invariably. But I'm not writing for them." Tagame sparingly depicts extreme fetishistic material in work such as coprophilia or graphic violence, noting that the primary purpose of his pornographic works is to inspire sexual excitement and not disgust.
While comic art featuring sexualized depictions of masculine men is not unique to Tagame, academic William Armour argues that his works are distinguished from his peers through his interest "in the way in which power relationships between men can be eroticised." His manga have been noted for their aesthetic qualities and psychological complexity, with Armour writing that "while on one level Tagame presents stories as graphic cartoon porn, on another level he weaves into the images and wording a much deeper sense of how homosociality can easily transform into homosexuality, despite his male characters being positioned as examples of hegemonic masculinity." Tagame himself has stated that "what I have tried to do in my erotica is raise that to the level of art and think about it in terms of art being principally to the service of depicting humanity."
While the majority of gay manga artists produce works targeting a gay male audience exclusively, Tagame is noted for having a significant heterosexual and female audience. Tagame has stated that he adjusts his style if a work is being published in a format where it will be primarily read by a specific subset of his audience, noting that "when I write for gay men's magazines, it's primarily about the hero's initiative and interiority. When I know that women are also going to be reading it they're more interested in seeing actual relationships and coupling." In considering why Tagame's works attract a diverse audience, Anne Ishii hypothesizes that "something about what Tagame does isn't even about being gay it's about desire and the darker side of desire. It doesn't fit into a sexual category to me."
Tagame credits both Japanese and Western artists among his influences, including Caravaggio, Michelangelo, the Marquis de Sade, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Go Mishima, Sanshi Funayama, Oda Toshimi, Suehiro Maruo, Kazuichi Hanawa, Hiromi Hiraguchi, and Bill Ward. Nude figures in Hellenistic and Baroque art, initially encountered by Tagame in classic art anthologies he read as a child, heavily influenced his works. In considering his Western and Japanese influences, Tagame notes that Western Christian art has inspired his depictions of nudity and humiliation, whereas Japanese classical art such as shunga has inspired his depictions of violence.

Themes and motifs

Hypermasculinity

The majority of Tagame's works depict men with personal and physical traits associated with hypermasculinity – developed muscles, hirsute bodies, large penises, an exaggerated volume of ejaculate, machismo, and participation in extreme or violent sexual acts. Tagame has stated that he is interested in how men who are perceived as masculine "respond to societal pressure" and "perform their manliness beyond what's necessary," and how those attitudes change "if a man loses his manliness by participating in activity that normative society believes men would not normally participate in." Armour identifies Pride, which depicts a dominant university student who is trained into submission by his sadistic professor, and The Gamefowl in Darkness, which is inspired by Yasujirō Ozu's A Hen in the Wind and Edogawa Ranpo's The Caterpillar, as representative examples of hypermasculine themes in Tagame's works.
Tagame's artwork is often associated with bara, a colloquialism used by non-Japanese audiences to refer to Japanese erotic art featuring masculine men. Tagame has rejected this association, citing the term's historical use as a pejorative for gay men and calling it "a very negative word that comes with bad connotations." Tagame's works are often categorized alongside the "macho" gay art movement associated with artists such as Tom of Finland, which emerged in American biker culture in the early 1960s and was later adapted by gay men to counter stereotypes of effeteness and emasculation. Designer Chip Kidd has contested this association, arguing that "as delightfully sturdy and game as Tom of Finland’s characters depicted, they never quite seem alive. Tagame’s characters are, by vivid contrast, almost unbearably so."
Edmund White argues that the hypermasculine ideal Tagame depicts is more categorically similar to Meiji period literature, specifically the character archetype of a man "who was homosexual because he was uncouth, not refined enough to be heterosexual and to please women, a warrior, a peasant from the south, not fit for decent society." Armour notes that Tagame's works are distinguished from his Western gay comic peers through his subversion of stereotypical portrayals of East Asian men as emasculated and asexual, writing that "while there seems little difference in how Tagame’s men are drawn and how male characters in Western erotic gay comics are depicted from a white, Western viewpoint, Tagame's depiction of hyper-masculine Japanese men can be considered to break down the stereotype within many Western gay cultures that Asian men in general are skinny, small-dicked, effete weaklings who are fucked for the pleasure of big-dicked, buff macho white guy."

Sadomasochism and sexual violence

Though not all sexual depictions in Tagame's manga involve sadomasochism and sexual violence, it is a common theme in his work, with White writing that "in Gengoroh Tagame's world, no man is ever penetrated willingly." Tagame's BDSM-focused works often depict other taboo subject material, such as rape, bestiality, incest, and body modification. Despite the often graphic subjects of his works, critics have generally not considered Tagame's art as ero guro, or "erotic grotesque" art that focuses on material that is disgusting or horrific. Rather than depict gore and horror overtly, Tagame states that he draws inspiration for his BDSM stories from Shakespearean tragedy, German opera, and Japanese folktales that depict the "beauty of destruction" and a "person who’s falling apart". For example, in his manga Missing, a man frees his kidnapped brother by killing the corrupt military officers who have captured him, though the murderous act is intentionally not directly depicted.
Tagame's works focused on BDSM frequently depict a protagonist who goes through a process of self-discovery as a result of his participation in a BDSM or otherwise fetishistic relationship. Most often, these stories involve a masculine man whose engagement with BDSM transforms him from a dominant to a submissive sexual role, such as stories featuring "alpha" men who are sexually dominated and tortured or who allow themselves to be sexually debased out of a sense of responsibility or duty. Kolbeins argues that by depicting BDSM as a process of self-discovery, Tagame's stores are framed "within a relatable framework of human drama," while Kidd notes that "a typical Tagame character can be seen as the ultimate mature brute symbol of authority for whom the tide has abruptly turned." Examples of these themes include Endless Game, where a man taken as a sex slave comes to enjoy his new status and forces his captors to obey his desires, and Arena, where a Japanese karate champion becomes involved in an American fighting tournament where the winner of each match sodomizes the loser.

Japanese traditionalism

Tagame's works often depict Japanese historical settings, or draw heavily on traditional Japanese aesthetics in plot or subject material. While homosexuality has a history in Japan dating to ancient times, the country shifted away from a tolerance of homosexuality amid Westernization during the Meiji era, and forms of gay expression that were once accepted became pathologized and criminalized. This tension between traditionalism and modernism manifests in Tagame's erotic manga through his rendering of hierarchies, such as works that focus on the patriarchal nature of Japanese society, or samurai characters that serve as symbolic representations of an unjust feudal order. Tagame has stated that he is "fascinated by how these hierarchies fail," describing his simultaneous frustration and attraction to hierarchies associated with Japanese traditionalism thusly:
One of Tagame's earliest long-form serialized works was The Silver Flower, a historical drama set in the Edo period that follows a formerly wealthy businessman who is forced into sexual slavery in order to resolve a debt. Through the course of the abuse and humiliation he endures at the hands of his male clients, the character comes to realize that he is a masochist; Kolbeins notes that the series "examines a time when male-male sexuality flourished in Japanese society, unfettered by Western notions of sin and 'sodomy'." In Country Doctor, which focuses on a pre-modern Japanese village where western-imposed taboos on sex are absent, Tagame states that he seeks to "spin on its head is this idea that we think people were more conservative in the past and are more liberated in the present."
Themes of traditionalism similarly manifest in Tagame's all-ages manga, albeit in a non-sexual context, through their examination of contemporary Japanese social attitudes towards homosexuality. In My Brother's Husband, protagonist Yaichi is forced to examine his own preconceived notions about gay people after meeting the husband of his deceased twin brother, with his initial homophobia mirroring the prevalent conservative attitudes towards LGBT rights in Japan. Tagame notes that Yaichi's character arc towards tolerance and acceptance further mirrors themes in his BDSM manga, where characters are faced with a choice between acceptance of reality or the denial of their own desires and happiness.

Works

Manga

The following is a list of Tagame's serialized and one-shot manga works. Serializations refer to multi-chapter works that are typically later published as collected editions, while one-shots refer to single-chapter works that are sometimes later collected in anthologies.

Year	English title	Original title	Type	Magazine	Collected edition / Anthology
1987		柔術教師	One-shot
1987		淫虐浴場	One-shot	Sabu
1988		調教師	One-shot	Sabu
1988		ラガー失墜	One-shot	Sabu
1988		深夜営業	One-shot	Sabu
1989		BOXER～栄光の代償	One-shot	Sabu
1990		敗将賦	One-shot	Sabu
1990		軋む男	Serialization	Sabu	The Judo Master
1990		儀式	One-shot	Sabu
1990		調教師～オーダーメイドされた男	One-shot	Sabu
1991	Dedicated to Mr. Eikichi Adachi	芦立頌	One-shot	Sabu
1991		SM同好会～山荘合宿	One-shot	Sabu	The Prisoners
1991		陰の軛	Serialization	Sabu	The Prisoners
1991		The Dokata	One-shot	Sabu	The Judo Master
1991		白峯異聞	One-shot	Sabu	The Prisoners
1991	Purgatory	プルガトリオ	One-shot	Sabu	The Judo Master
1992		一つ家異聞	Serialization	Sabu
1992		嬲り者	Serialization	Sabu	The Toyed Man
1992	My Teacher	俺の先生	Serialization	Sabu	The Judo Master
1992		衣川異聞	One-shot	Sabu	Forbidden Works
1994	The Silver Flower	男女郎苦界草紙～銀の華	Serialization	Badi	The Silver Flower vols. 1–3
1994		谺	Serialization	Sabu	The Prisoners
1994		谺	One-shot		The Judo Master
1995		獲物	Serialization	G-men
1995		闇の中の軍鶏	Serialization	G-men	Pride vol. 3
1996		沈黙の渚	Serialization	G-men	The Prisoners
1996	Pride	PRIDE	Serialization	G-men	Pride vols. 1–3
1998		山荘合宿後日譚	One-shot		The Prisoners
1999		43階の情事	Serialization	Badi	Country Doctor / Pochi
1999		猛き血潮～大日本帝國陸軍中尉、中里和馬の場合	One-shot	SM-Z	Forbidden Works
2000		外道の家	Serialization	Badi	The House of Brutes vols. 1–3
2000		猛き血潮～釧路大谷組小頭・坂田彦造の場合	One-shot	SM-Z	Forbidden Works
2000		瓜盗人	One-shot	SM-Z	Forbidden Works
2000		闘技場～アリーナ	Serialization	G-men	Forbidden Works
2000	Zenith	ZENITH	One-shot	SM-Z	Forbidden Works
2000		「マゾ」	Serialization	G-men	Flesh + Beard
2001	Nightmare	NIGHTMARE	One-shot	SM-Z	Forbidden Works
2001	Do You Remember the South Island's POW Camp?	君よ知るや南の獄	Serialization	G-men	Do You Remember the South Island's POW Camp? vols. 1 & 2
2002	Kranke	Kranke	One-shot	SM-Z	Forbidden Works
2002	Gunji	軍次	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2003	Trap	TRAP	One-shot	SM-Z	Pride vol. 1
2003		傷痕	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2003		驟雨	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2003		火坑 1	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2003		メス豚の天国	One-shot	SoMe Bizzarre	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2003	Trap 2	TRAP 2	One-shot	SM-Z	Pride vol. 2
2003		火坑 2	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2004		天守に棲む鬼	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2004		Hairy Oracle	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2004		非國民	One-shot	SM-Z	Pride vol. 3
2004		嗜虐の花園	One-shot	Reijin Dramatic
2004	I Wanted to Say "I Love You" for the Whole	ずっと好きだと言えなくて	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2004		だるま憲兵	One-shot	Super SM-Z	Forbidden Works
2004		大江山綺譚	One-shot	Kinniku-Otoko	Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep
2005	Virtus	雄心～ウィルトゥース	Serialization	Gekidan	Virtus
2005	I Can't Tell Anybody	誰にも言えない	One-shot	Super SM-Z	Virtus
2007		透き通るような黄金（きん）の瞳	One-shot	Hontou-ni-Kowai-Douwa
2007		雪原渺々	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Virtus
2007		神経性胃炎	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Virtus
2007	Piko's Inside	ぴこのなかみ	One-shot	Oshiri-Club
2007		落日～西太后と東太后	One-shot	Hontou-ni-Kowai-Douwa
2007		長夜寞々	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Flesh + Beard
2007		哀酷義勇軍	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Boy in Hell / Father and Son in Hell
2008		稚児	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Flesh + Beard
2008		傀儡廻（くぐつまわし）	One-shot	Badi	Country Doctor / Pochi
2008		ジゴロ	One-shot	Badi	Country Doctor / Pochi
2008		告白	Serialization	Badi	Boy in Hell / Father and Son in Hell
2008		晒し台	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Flesh + Beard
2008	A Boy In Hell	童（わっぱ）地獄	Serialization	Nikutai-Ha	Boy in Hell / Father and Son in Hell
2008	Run, My Horse, Run!	汗馬疾々（かんばとうとう）	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Flesh + Beard
2008	Pochi, My Dog	ポチ	Serialization	Badi	Country Doctor / Pochi
2008	Dissolve	DISSOLVE～ディゾルブ～	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Flesh + Beard
2009	Father and Son in Hell	父子（おやこ）地獄	Serialization	Badi	Boy in Hell / Father and Son in Hell
2009		雨降りお月さん	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Flesh + Beard
2009	Butchering My Son	倅解体	One-shot	Manga Kono Mystery ga Omoshiroi!
2009		ECLOSION	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Flesh + Beard
2009		Der Fliegende Hollander	One-shot	Badi	Boy in Hell / Father and Son in Hell
2009	Manimal Chronicles	人畜無骸	Serialization	Badi
2009	Hot Oden	おでんぐつぐつ	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Muscle Octameron
2009		Lover Boy	Serialization	Badi	Country Doctor / Pochi
2009		鬼祓え	One-shot	Nikutai-Ha	Muscle Octameron
2010	Standing Ovations	スタンディング・オベーション	One-shot	Badi	Country Doctor / Pochi
2010	What Is This Thing Called Love?	恋とは何でしょう	One-shot	Nikutai-ha	Tsutsui Manga Tokuhon Futatabi
2010		転職	One-shot	Nikutai-ha	Muscle Octameron
2010		田舎医者	Serialization	Badi	Country Doctor / Pochi
2010	Company Slave Elegy	社畜哀歌	One-shot	Badi	Muscle Octameron
2010	In the Chest	長持の中	Serialization	Badi	Winter Fisherman's Lodge / In The Chest
2010		クレタの牝牛	One-shot	Nikutai-ha	Muscle Octameron
2010	Missing	MISSING ～ミッシング～	One-shot	Nikutai-ha	Muscle Octameron
2011		冬の番家	Serialization	Badi	Winter Fisherman's Lodge / In The Chest
2011	Man-Cunt	ACTINIA	Serialization	Badi	Winter Fisherman's Lodge / In The Chest
2011	Monster Hunt Show	モンスター・ハント・ショー	One-shot	Nikutai-ha Gachi!	Muscle Octameron
2012	Endless Game	エンドレス・ゲーム	Serialization	Badi	Endless Game
2012	End Line	END LINE	One-shot	Nikutai-ha Gachi!	Muscle Octameron
2012	My Favorite Things	お気に入り☆萌えブーム	One-shot	Karen
2013	Contracts of the Fall	転落の契約	Serialization	Badi	Endless Game
2013	Thin Earlobe	転落の契約	One-shot	Hontou-ni-Kowai-Douwa
2013	Slave Training Summer Camp	奴隷調教合宿	Serialization	Badi	Slave Training Summer Camp
2014	My Brother's Husband	弟の夫	Serialization	Monthly Action	My Brother's Husband vols. 1–4
2015	On All Four on Friday Nights	金曜の夜は四つん這いで	Serialization	Badi	Slave Training Summer Camp
2015	Planet Brobdingnag	プラネット・ブロブディンナグ	Serialization	Badi
2016	Khoz, The Spellbound Slave	呪縛の性奴	Serialization	Self-published	Khoz, The Spellbound Slave
2017	Meat Carrot	肉人参	Serialization	Badi
2017	Grandpa's Meat Carrot	じっちゃんの肉人参	Serialization	Badi
2018		日輪の王	Serialization	Badi
2018	Our Colors	僕らの色彩	Serialization	Monthly Action	Our Colors vols. 1–3
2018	Bitch of the Jungle	Bitch of the Jungle	Serialization	Self-published	Bitch of the Jungle
2018	My Summer Holidays	俺の夏休み	One-shot	Badi
2018	I Became A Bitch Of My Best Friend's Dad	親友の親父に雌にされて	Serialization	Badi
2019	Khoz 2: A Report on a Slave Training Under a Spell	呪縛の性奴：呪的口肛調教録	One-shot	Self-published
2019	False Detective – Resurgence: Fancy Homosexual Boy	新・刑事もどき　ゲイボーイ	One-shot	Tezucomi
2022	Fish and Water	魚と水	Serialization	Web Action

The Toyed Man, 1994, B Product; republished October 12, 2017, Pot Publishing
The Silver Flower, 2001, G-Project; republished by Pot Publishing as:
*The Silver Flower vol. 1
*The Silver Flower vol. 2
*The Silver Flower vol. 3
Pride, published by Furukawa Shobo as:
*Pride vol. 1 ; also includes Trap
*Pride vol. 2 ; also includes Trap 2
*Pride vol. 3 ; also includes The Gamefowl in Darkness and The Unpatriotic Boy
The House of Brutes, published by Terra Publications as:
*The House of Brutes vol. 1
*The House of Brutes vol. 2
*The House of Brutes vol. 3
Do You Remember the South Island's POW Camp?, published by Pot Publishing as:
*Do You Remember the South Island's POW Camp? vol. 1
*Do You Remember the South Island's POW Camp? vol. 2
My Brother's Husband, published by Futabasha as:
*My Brother's Husband vol. 1
*My Brother's Husband vol. 2
*My Brother's Husband vol. 3
*My Brother's Husband vol. 4
Our Colors, published by Futabasha as:
*Our Colors vol. 1
*Our Colors vol. 2
*Our Colors vol. 3
Fish and Water, Futabasha
The Judo Master, 1994, B Product; republished 2020 by Pot Publishing
*Collects The Rasp, The Construction Workers, Purgatory, The Legend of Hitotsuya, My Teacher, and The Judo Master Remix Version
The Prisoners, 1998, G-Project
*Collects The Mountain Cottage Training Camp, The Yoke of Shadow, The Legend of Shiramine, The Echoes, The Prisoners, The Silent Shore, and The After Story of The Mountain Cottage Training Camp
Gunji / The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep, 2005, Furukawa Shobo
*Collects the Gunji tetralogy and The Ballad of Ôeyama ], The Sow's Heaven, The Demon Who Lives in the Tower Keep, The Hairy Oracle, I Wanted to Say "I Love You" for the Whole, and The Ballad of Oeyama
Forbidden Works, 2007, Pot Publishing
*Collects The Legend of Koromogawa, The Soldier's Brave Blood, The Yakuza's Brave Blood, The Melon Thief, The Arena, Zenith, Nightmare, Kranke, and The Tumble Doll MP
Virtus, October 12, 2007, Oakla Publishing
*Collects Virtus, I Can't Tell Anybody, The Vast Snow Field, and The Nonulcer Dyspepsia
Flesh + Beard, 2009, Ôkura Publishing
*Collects The Masochist, The Long Lonely Night, The Nonulcer Dyspepsia, Dissolve ''The Pillory The Protege, Run, My Horse, Run!, The Eclosion, and The Moon Over the Rainy Sky
Boy in Hell / Father and Son in Hell, 2010, Pot Publishing
*Collects The Army of Fallen-Tears, A Boy In Hell, The Confession Father and Son in Hell, and The Flying Dutchman
Country Doctor / Pochi, 2012, Pot Publishing
*Collects The Secret Affair of the 43rd Floor, The Puppet Master, The Gigolo, Pochi, My Dog, The Lover Boy, Standing Ovations, The Country Doctor, and Enslaved in Unknown World
Muscle Octameron, 2012, OKS Publishing
*Collects The Exorcism, Hot Oden, Company Slave Elegy, Cretian Cow, The Job Switch, Missing, Monster Hunt Show, End Line
Winter Fisherman’s Lodge / In The Chest, 2013, Pot Publishing
*Collects In the Chest, The Winter Fisherman Lodge, and Man-Cunt
Endless Game, 2014, Pot Publishing
*Collects Endless Game and Contracts of the Fall
Slave Training Summer Camp, 2017, Pot Publishing
*Collects Slave Training Summer Camp and On All Four on Friday Nights
Meat Carrot / Manimal Chronicles, 2021, Pot Publishing Plus
*Collects Manimal Chronicles, Planet Brobdingnag, Meat Carrot, and Grandpa’s Meat Carrot,
The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame
*Collects The Arena, The Hairy Oracle, The Exorcism, The Country Doctor, Missing, Standing Ovations, and Class Act
Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It
*Multi-author anthology containing an excerpt of Do You Remember the South Island's POW Camp?
Endless Game
*Collects Endless Game
Gunji
*Collects the Gunji tetralogy and The Ballad of Ôeyama
Fisherman’s Lodge
*Collects The Confession, The Winter Fisherman Lodge, and End Line
The Contracts of the Fall
*Collects Pochi, My Dog, The Flying Dutchman, The Lover Boy, and The Contracts of the Fall
Khoz, The Spellbound Slave
*Collects Khoz, The Spellbound Slave
My Brother's Husband, published as:
*My Brother's Husband vol. 1
*My Brother's Husband vol. 2
*My Brother's Husband omnibus
Our Colors
The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame, Vol. 2
*Collects Dissolve, Manimal Chronicles, Moon Shower, Slave Training Summer Camp, and King of the Sun''

Art books and novels

Gay Erotic Art in Japan Vol. 1: Artists From the Time of the Birth of Gay Magazines
Gay Erotic Art in Japan Vol. 2: Transitions of Gay Fantasy in the Times
To the Future of Gay Culture
Gay Erotic Art in Japan Vol. 3: Growth of the Gay Magazines and the Diversification of their Artists
''Gengoroh Tagame Sketchbook''

Reception and influence

Tagame is regarded as the most prolific and influential creator of gay manga. The manga anthology Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It notes Tagame as "without a doubt the individual most directly responsible for the success of gay manga," while Kidd has compared his oeuvre to that of the Marquis de Sade, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Yukio Mishima.
Anthropologist Wim Lunsing credits the "bear-type" aesthetic pioneered by Tagame with provoking a major stylistic shift in Shinjuku Ni-chōme, the gay neighborhood of Tokyo. Following the publication of G-men, the "slender and slick" clean-shaven style popular among gay men was replaced with "stubble, beards and moustaches extremely short became the most common hair style and the broad muscular body, soon to evolve to chubby and outright fat, became highly fashionable." Tagame's work in establishing G-men is further credited as providing an incubator for up-and-coming talent in the gay manga genre, and launching the careers of artists such as Jiraiya. His archival efforts in producing Gay Erotic Art in Japan are further credited with developing a "gay art canon" of Japanese erotic art. Among Tagame's critics are gay erotic artist Susumu Hirosegawa, who has described his art as "S&M theater" and criticized his manga as "simple emanations of the SM-shumiō of Tagame." Lunsing concurs that "it is hard to counter argument, as stories are not very elaborate."
Tagame has won multiple awards for his work, primarily My Brother's Husband. The series was awarded excellence awards at the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2015 and the Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 2018. Internationally, the series won an Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia in 2018. Works by Tagame were exhibited at the British Museum in 2019 as part of The Citi Exhibition: Manga, its exhibition on the history of manga.